food, snaps & slurps! (burps not included)

There are not many italian restaurants in the city till we saw this newly opened restaurant along Swanston Street.

This is located upstair, above a Thai restaurant. The only way to recognise this restaurant is the signboard on the ceiling along the walkway. Curious as we were, we were up to try.

It was a pretty big place as it can hold around 50 people. However it was quite quiet while we were there.

Looking at the menu with the pretty photos of food, we began to order some dishes.

Half Naloletana and half Pescatora Pizza (Small) - $8
Its diameter is around 25cm.
You can actually order half/half of different kind of pizza although this is no stated on the menu. Just tell them you want a half half pizza. However this pizza was a disappointment. Look at the photo, one strip of squid or slice of pepperoni per slice of pizza. No cheese on top of it, simply tomato pasta paste. Bland.

Penne Carbonara (Entree) - $10
Nothing really great about this. It was really a small size pasta given the fact it was entree size. I think it was much smaller than the normal entree. Bland too.

Tortellini Al Pollo (Main) - $15
My friend commented this sucked as well.

Food of the day (Main) - $19
Didn’t take any photo on this but K commented it wasn’t that bad afterall. But looking at the price tag, i don’t think it is worth.

This place offers student discount during some hours in the afternoon. Do ask the staff what kind of student discounts they are offering! Last heard was a 15% off total bill.

Verdict: Try this place unless you are desparate for italian food. I don’t even think it is an authentic Italian restaurant.

Pizzaria Italinao
255 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

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Well.. I lost the photos~~ Will put up the photos if I have the chance to go there again.

This restaurant serves pretty nice food japanese stonegrill. Prices are around A$20 range.

Booking is highly recommended as the restaurant is pretty small.

Waiting time for the food took us 30-45 minutes!!

Ishiya Japanese Stonegrill
152 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne
Tel: 03 9650 9510

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We have heard a lot about Hako from people, newspapers and internet forums that this serves good japanese cruisine. It started from a little shop along Degraves Street in CBD and then moved to a bigger premise along Flinders Lane, 10 minutes walk away.

The ambience was good, setting was dark with candle lights placed on each table. Good place for lovers to enjoy their meals. But as times passed by and more diners settling down and having dinners, the whole place started to get noisy within the small enclosed area. Imagine we had to speak up in order to get our conversation across the table.

A pot of green tea - A$3.80
See how small the pot is? Just enough to fill up 3 cups!

Sashimi Main - A$27.80. Entree size - $17.80 (if i am not wrong)
Made up of 3 slices each of salmon, swordfish, tuna and the other 2, i am not sure.
Each slice is around 2cm wide and 1.5cm height. They are very small!!! I though main size would be big enough for 3 but the slices were not enough! Before you knew it, they were gone! Needed to control your appetite while waiting for our main dishes. At least they were fresh!

Tonkatsu - A$26.00
This does not come with rice at all and cost another $2 to get a bloody small bowl of rice in those shallow deep rice bowl. I was sure K was not full from eating this. K commented this was good, tender and crispy!

Unagidon - A$22.80
At least this dish was able to fill my stomach. Lots of rice to go with the eel. Eel was ordinary just like those you can buy from supermarket or sushi shops. I can’t say it was fantastic but it was neither bad.

Teriyaki Chicken - A$20.80
This doesn’t come with rice as well. Pretty small portion however they tasted good. Not too sweet or not too much of the teriyaki sauce. D commented she was not full after having this.

Reservation is strongly recommended. We didnt make a booking and we were told beforehand that we needed to finish our meal by 8.30pm for the next booking. Since it was only 6.30pm, we reckoned it would be enough to finish our meal within 2 hours.

This restaurant was full of the locals and not the japaneses. We always use “who are the diners” as a benchmark if the resturant serves good food or not. Since there are no japaneses dining at this restaurant, it may not be that good according to the japanese’s standard.

Final verdict: This restaurant seems to be overpriced and over-rated. This is definitely not the place to have your stomach full. If you want to have something fulfilling, best to go to other restaurants that priced around $10 range.

Hako Japanese Restaurant
310 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9620 1881

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Guys.. guess what?? The photos i have taken at this restaurant are gone!!! I am so pissed!!! I couldn’t find them anyway on the phone…. They just disappeared!!!

Alright back to the entry. We went to this Italian restaurant along Lygon Street that was recommended by a friend of my cousin.

We went on to order the following items:

Entree Calamari - A$13.50
They were cold when they arrived. Not crunchy at all.

Large Mexican/Meatlovers pizza - A$18.00
A choice of mexican and meat lover pizza. You can actually request to get a large pizza each half of different type.

Large Calzone Rustico - A$13.50
It is a pizza but they fold into half. It was very cheesy to my taste buds.

Small Marinara Pizza- A$10.00

Mushroom Steak - A$23.50
The steak was very thick, however it was very “dry”, ie it was not served with any gravy on top of the steak. Although the mushrooms were generous, they did not add additional taste to the steak.

Pepper Steal - A$23.90
The pepper gravy was not that strongly flavoured. Pretty mild IMO. It would taste much better if the chef adds more pepper on it. Steak was really big.. which is more than enough to serve 2 gals…

Speciality that the friend recommends:

Chicken Parmigiana
Scaloppine Ai Funghi
Calzone Sweet (the staff mentioned this is recommended after the main course)

The staff were great!! They know their menu pretty well and give you recommendations depending on your likes!! The place was so crowded, a very popular place for value for money pizza. I even saw a ger holding 10 large pizza boxes!!! She must have some party going on!! Why was I not invited?? (lol)

Vee’s verdict: I reckon the pizzas are worth more value for money than the main courses. You can see most people ordering pizzas… Guys!! Once you try some other stuff, feel free to drop me a comment and I am more than happy to post on this blog… good stuff to be shared!!

[K]: definitely first and last visit, period.

Papa Gino’s
221 Lygon Street
Carlton Melbourne
Phone: 9347 5758

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K has always have takeaways from this restaurant which he always orders the set lunch. So we decided to try this restaurant on one Sunday.

Pork Rib Noodle Soup (排骨汤面)
This is very tasty!!! Highly recommended!! The broth is tasty; should be boiled for a long time. I dont really taste as if they used a lot of seasoning. I don’t like noodle soup because the soup base is usually bland. Even they have gravy on the noodle, it usually dissolves into the soup and you can’t taste the gravy at all.

K had this. It looked real good. Waiting for him to give his comments.
[K]: cheesy and delicious, does not taste exactly like the Western lasagne, but close.

Total bill came approximately A$25

Blue Hills Cafe
Box Hill VIC
Station Street

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Giant chesspieces. You can play at this gigantic set…

Cosy dining.

Lovely!

The Chocolate Cherry Jubilee - absolutely delicious! A$15.90.
The pancake is chocolate flavoured!

Crumbed Fish Fillet. Not too bad…

Bavarian apple. 2 stacks pancakes with a cup of vanilla ice cream

Yummy, light fluffy pancakes!
Overall verdict:
The pancakes are so soft and tasty as compared to MacDonalds! Very light and fluffy!! We do come here pretty often whenever we have cravings for pancakes. Also a very good place if you are coming with a big group. They have lots of tables to go around. The one at Bourke Street is always full of people each time we go there.. that’s telling us how popular this place is!!!

We usually go to the one at Bourke Street in the CBD and the staff are so friendly! Before you go in to the restaurant, do check near to the escalator to the restaurant if their staff is giving out free vouchers.. There were several times when we got free 2 stacks pancake and free ice lemon tea if we order pancakes etc…

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Operating Hours:
Sunday - Thursday: 7am - 10pm
Friday - Saturday: 7am - 12am

Note that they charge A$2 for public holiday surcharge per person so as to cover the higher wages to the staff (they are paid double).

The Pancake Palour

Outlets in Melbourne:
Bourke Street City
Chadstone
Dandenong
Doncaster (Open 24 Hours)
Eastland
Forest Hill
Fountain Gate
Glen Waverley
Highpoint
Jam Factory
Northland

Sorry guys.. Have not been updating this food blog. In fact we have been trying new restuarants and took some pictures… but we are so busy recently with my little “cookie” (that’s our new puppy!) and studies… well we are back on track.. stay tuned!!

K was told about this Middle Eastern restaurant by his customer, who strongly recommended this restaurant.. we tried to Google for it but they do not have a website… so after spending some time searching their address… we found it!!!!

The coffee section and the cake display.

The interior; it was full house on a Thursday!! Surprising isn’t it? There are actually several Middle Eastern restaurants along that stretch of Sydney Road but this is the most crowded of all… Lots of Middle East people were having their dinners.. it must be good since it attracts a huge group of customers.

The waitress was very nice and gave some advice on the choice of food, after we told her that this was our first visit; we do not know much about Middle East cuisine.. so she recommended some kebabs - either wraps or with rice.

These were all we ordered… only cost A$42 in total… quite reasonable. Chicken kebab, lamb kebab and a small Sahara pizza.

Sahara Pizza - their speciality. A decent size for one person to bite on, good for sharing too. The special part about their pizza base is that it’s very fresh and soft.. not those hard kind of crust…

Chicken and lamb kebab with rice. Their rice has some spaghetti strands in it.. and the rice texture tastes different, very soft and fragrant.

Salad. Actually we ordered two sets of kebabs - chicken and lamb. The staff was very nice and suggested that she would put salad together in a plate (that comes with the kebabs) and meat and rice in another plate.. at least we do not end up making a mess…(rice and salad together.. it can be a mess!) The salad was very fresh and crunchy!! unlike those from Macca’s that are so soggy and yellow.

Pita Bread and 3 types of sauces (from left to right: I am not really sure, one tasted like sour cream, last one like mashed potato and bacon)

After all, the service was great and food was reasonably priced and good… will go again!

Sahara Pizza
627 Sydney Road
Brunswick, VIC 3056
Tel: 03 9386 5400

Nearest train station: Anstey - Upfield line, Zone 1
Available tram route: 19

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Met with my vocal class frens and decided to end up here to try their ice cream!!

Brownie - $9.90
2 scoops of ice creams of your choice. Dawn and MX said the brownies are damn good!! Notice that little white tray?? That is the chocolate fudge to dip your brownie in!!! Yummy!!!

Sundae Basket - $9.90
3 scoops of ice creams of your choice in a freshly baked waffle.
I picked Belgium chocolate, Rum & Raisin & Mocha Almond Fudge

Discount:
NTU/NUS/SMU matriculation cardholders have 10% discount for bills more than S$20.

Location:
Anderson of Denmark
Marina Square (Near Sasa Cosmetics)

K was introduced to this pizza cafe when he joined the school’s orientation trip. The pizzas here are so tasty that he brought me here; I do agree that they are really yummy!!! When his family were in town, we brought them here again and they too liked it very much! Here’s our food!

The decor

While we were looking at the menu, we discovered something interesting!

Mexican (Small) - A$10.50

This is a bit dry, however the taste is great!

Sweet Chilli Chicken Pizza (small) - A$13

This is one of the speciality pizzas here. Sweet and juicy!! It is not spicy at all..

Marina Supreme - $23.90

Lots of seafood!!!! Really value for money!! Seafood in Melbourne is pretty expensive. But look at this, they are so generous!!!

Curry (Main) - $16.90

This is really different. Very fusion - spaghetti in curry sauce. The curry sauce tastes like those u can find in Nissin cup noodle.

Calamari (Main) - $19.90

Mocha - $3.50

Coke (Jug) - $7.90

Topolinos
87 Fitzroy St
St Kilda
Tel: (03) 9534 1952

This is one of the cheapest and valued for money cafe in Melbourne city I can even find. They have very limited menu but they are pretty tasty.

Inside the cafe, they play jazz music when you will feel so comfortable. Their services are very fast, within 1-2 minutes your order will be ready! This is good especially you are really in a hurry. Takeaways are available. As it is strategically located in the city and the prices of the menu are really low, often it is very crowded.

Below are the dishes I have tried.

Beef Don - A$5.80

Salmon Don - A$8.30
Lots of salmon!! Yummy…

Chicken Curry Don - A$6.30
The curry is thick, strong flavoured. I personally like the curry a lot… This is one of the popular dishes.

Don Don
Swanston Street (opposite QV)
Melbourne